A Story to Tell Your Friends

I woke up to my phone buzzing on the table next to my head, signalling a phone call and making me groan. I pulled the covers down from over my head and squinted at the screen. Tammy.
“Hello?” I grumbled, leaning back into the bed and shutting my eyes again.
“Where the fuck are you?!”
“Tam, you’re making my head hurt, please stop screeching.”
“I swear to God, if you’re where I think you are, I will kill you. What do you mean you went home with a guy?!”
“And cheese fries, Tammy; cheese fries.” She was shouting at me for not coming home, which I had to give her credit for, though I was irritated at the way she was acting like she was my mother. That and the fact that it was way too early to be dealing with nonsense right now.
“I’ll give you fucking cheese fries.”
“Bacon ones? No, didn’t think so.”
“You can’t just go home with boys you barely know! What if he’d been dangerous?!”
“Tammy, if he was dangerous, I’m sure you’d be the first person to know. Tumblr would be all over that crap and so would you.” I heard a quiet snort from next to me and I peeked over the comforter, seeing Jack laid next to me. We’d moved from the floor to the bed within half an hour of starting to play games and I’m not sure when we’d fallen asleep, though I could see the TV was still on and the console was still quietly humming at the foot of the bed. I put my finger to my lips, signalling for him to be quiet so Tammy didn’t hear him and give me more crap.
“That’s not the point! You said you’d come home and I wake up and find out you’ve done exactly what you said you wouldn’t do and went home with him?!”
“Tammy, the four of us left the bar at 4am, Jack and I stumbled about looking for food for half an hour and then we ended up back at his place eating cheese fries and playing Fallout 4. It’s not quite the disaster you imagined.”
“Did you kiss him?”
“No.” I heard her sigh a little and I could feel the parental lecturer in her begin to dissipate.
“When are you coming home?” Jack nudged me, shaking his head. I took it to mean ‘not right now’.
“I’m not sure. I think I’m going to grab breakfast, or lunch, depending on what time it actually is, and then work it from there. Okay?” Tammy agreed, saying goodbye and asking to be kept in the loop.
“Is she your mother in disguise?” Jack snickered when I finally hung up the phone.
“There’s every chance that, yes, she is. She’ll chill out as soon as she starts making new friends, though.” I checked the time, seeing that it was only 11am and wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep. “Do you have coffee?” Jack nodded, standing up and stretching. He picked up his own phone as I stood up and adjusted my top, chuckling to himself.
“I’ve got a lecture myself from Lisa,” he told me when he noticed me looking at him like he was crazy.
So, I’ve just woken up and realised you left me and Alex to wander off with Clara. I really hope you called her a cab after you got food, Jack, because I really don’t want her to just become another face in the crowd. She’s too nice for that. If Alex tells me you did anything stupid, I will flip out, just fair warning. On the other hand, diner at 12? Alex says he’s hungover and needs waffles. Lemme know!
“And you think my friends are crazy,” I snorted, handing him back the phone. Jack and I walked into the kitchen and he put a pot of coffee on for the two of us. “Hey, Lis!” I said, answering my buzzing phone with much more energy than I felt. Jack turned swiftly from grabbing our mugs to look at me and I grinned slyly.
“Hey, Clar! How are you feeling? Did you get home okay?” I bit my lip at her question, seeing Jack shaking his head furiously.
“Hold on, I just need to put you on speaker a second,” I told her, ignoring her questions and pressing the speaker button so Jack could hear the conversation. I knew she was only calling as a follow up to the rant she’d text Jack. “You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here!”
“Good. Yeah, I’m cool. I spent a little longer with Jack than I meant to though.” I forced a laugh and continued to look at Jack’s changing expressions. He was remarkably unsure on if I was going to rat him out or not: it was hilarious. “How are you guys feeling?”
“Alex is holding up okay, but I feel like death. We’re both in desperate need of breakfast food but Jack hasn’t text back about going out.”
“He’s probably asleep,” I told her.
“’Probably’? You mean, he called you a cab and you went home last night?” I rolled my eyes. She was not even remotely subtle when she was hungover.
“Yes, mom, he was a perfect gentleman and didn’t try anything.” I saw Jack visibly relax, turning back to the coffee making. Lisa and I continued to chit chat about last night while Jack made coffee as quietly as possible so his friends wouldn’t say anything.
“Lisa, will you get off the phone to Clara and call Jack?” I heard Alex whine in the background, interrupting the conversation.
“Why can’t you just call him?” She called back. Jack turned around to hand me my coffee, though the pair of us fumbled when I tried to take the mug from him and ended up spilling a large quantity of it on my hands.
“Ow, shit, Jack!” I screeched, putting the mug down.
“Crap, sorry!” He said, turning around for a cloth so I could clean my hands and try and get as much of the liquid off my hand as possible to avoid burn marks.
“What happened?!” Lisa asked, quickly coming back to our conversation and breaking away from her conversation with Alex. “Are you okay?”
“I just spilled coffee all over myself, that’s all,” I said, gratefully accepting the cloth Jack had given me while he prepared another cool one for me.
“You mean Jack spilled coffee all over you?” I cringed, realising how the pair of us had reacted. Jack looked at me, a little wide-eyed, passing over the cool cloth to replace the one I’d used to dry myself.
“Um, yeah?”
“I will kill him.” I heard Alex asking Lisa what was going on at her latest remark. “Your best friend is doing exactly what we told him not to do, that’s what’s going on.” I rolled my eyes, realising just how alike she and Tammy were. They loved new couples and relationships, but they were way too protective of other people.
“Okay, so he didn’t call me a cab and I didn’t go home last night, but I stand by my ‘perfect gentleman’ comment.” I heard Alex snort a little in the background, realising I was now on speakerphone also as he made a joke about how Jack has never been perfect or a gentleman in all his life.
“You’re on speakerphone, Alex,” Jack stated, now checking my hands to make sure they hadn’t gone a horrific shade of red, before adjusting the cloth for me.
“And so are you, Jack,” he shot back.
“That was kinda lame, Alex,” Lisa told him, realising that in fact Jack hadn’t said anything incriminating.
“Well, he’s awake! The least he could have done is replied to you!”
“I just woke up and needed coffee, hence the third degree burns on my hands,” I told them, backing Jack up a little, while still mocking him for the pain I was currently in. “Anyway, all we did last night was drink too much booze, eat cheese fries and play video games, and you two were party to the worst offence.”
“Look, I’d come out, but Clara is still in her clothes from last night and I’m trying to stop the nasty red marks she has from turning into anything else. I’ll speak to you both later, okay?” The pair on the other end of the phone grumbled about tradition though admitted defeat and hung up after telling me they hoped I was okay. “We’re in so much trouble this morning.” I chuckled as Jack wrapped his arms around me.
“Well, at least it’s not just me that’s in trouble. I always like to have a partner in crime.” I leaned into him a little, careful to keep my hands away from him. It felt relaxing, standing here like this, making me almost forget the dull throbbing in my right hand, the worst affected of the two. “At least your friends like me though, I guess.”
“Does it matter to you?”
“Well, I can’t very well keep flirting with you like a teenager if they hate me, can I?”
“Aw, do you like me, Clara?” I could almost see the grin on his face and I rolled my eyes, though my cheeks did heat up a little.
“I’m not sure. I definitely like all your crazy friends.” I felt Jack shake his head, releasing his grip on me and moving over toward the refrigerator. He grabbed another towel, this time filling it with ice and came back over to me.
“Up,” he told me, signalling for me to hop on the counter. I obeyed quietly, using my left hand to push myself up and holding my right out a little. My left hand looked fine, a little red on the thumb, but nothing I wasn’t going to survive. Jack removed the now room temperature cloth from my right hand, inspecting it for any signs of serious damage. “I think you’ll live,” he told me, placing the ice filled towel over my hand.
“I’m still going to sue you for emotional trauma.” Jack looked at me disbelievingly, moving closer to me. It was only now that I look up at him that I realised just how close he’d positioned himself when checking my hands. I felt my heart beat speeding up, licking my lips and gulping quickly.
“Oh? And is there any way I could put a stop to that right now?” I glanced at his lips, seeing them shining from the movement of his tongue.
“I’m not sure,” I breathed softly. “Maybe we could come to some sort of an arrangement.” I put the towel down, though didn’t break eye contact with Jack. His hands settled themselves on my waist and he pulled me closer to the edge of the counter; closer to him. His head dipped down slightly as he pressed his lips to mine tentatively. My hands moved up to his neck, tangling my fingers in his hair and pushed myself into the kiss a little more, turning the action into something a little more confident, Jack now forgetting any uncertainty he had felt. Jack pulled away after a few seconds, putting his forehead on my own.
“How was that for an arrangement?” I smiled softly.
“I think I might drop my suit.” I shuffled back away from him, grabbing my half-forgotten coffee and taking a large gulp, now that it had cooled down enough. Jack moved away, grabbing his own coffee and mirroring my action, picking up his phone as he did so.
“Lisa says sorry for freaking out,” he told me, still looking at his phone. I liked that neither of us was making a big deal of this. It felt like the mature way to handle it. It had been something that had been coming all week and I’m glad we’d managed to do this away from the drama of a drunken night out or our friends. Admittedly, it hadn’t been entirely free of them or their drama, but it was still something that was only ours. “She also says she has a pair of sneakers and a hoodie you can borrow if we want breakfast.” I laughed lightly. Apparently tradition meant a lot to these guys.
“It’s up to you. Just tell her she can’t freak out again if we all go out.”

Notes

I actually couldn't wait to put this part out. It's been written for ages and I just actually thought it was cute.
Plus, you know, something finally happened.